Whitehorse Manor Junior School

Age group 7–11 Inspection date(s) 9–10 July 2012 Inspection number 395515 Whitehorse Manor Junior School Inspection report

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Unique reference number 101742 Local authority Croydon Inspection number 395515 Inspection dates 9–10 July 2012 Lead inspector Tim McLoughlin

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This inspection of the school was carried out under section 5 of the Education Act 2005.

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Type of school Junior School category Community Age range of pupils 7–11 Gender of pupils Mixed Number of pupils on the school roll 239 Appropriate authority The Pegasus Academy Trust Chair Richard Hill Headteacher Nina Achenbach Date of previous school inspection 11 May 2009 School address Whitehorse Road Thornton Heath Surrey CR7 8SB Telephone number 020 8684 3929 Fax number 020 8239 0037 Email address junioradmin@whitehorse.croydon.sch.uk achieve excellence in the care of children and young people, and in education and skills for learners of all ages. It regulates and inspects childcare and children's social care, and inspects the Children and Family Court Advisory Support Service (Cafcass), schools, colleges, initial teacher training, work-based learning and skills training, adult and community learning, and education and training in prisons and other secure establishments. It assesses council children’s services, and inspects services for looked

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after children, safeguarding and child protection. Further copies of this report are obtainable from the school. Under the Education Act 2005, the school must provide a copy of this report free of charge to certain categories of people. A charge not exceeding the full cost of reproduction may be made for any other copies supplied. If you would like a copy of this document in a different format, such as large print or Braille, please telephone 0300 123 4234, or email enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk . You may copy all or parts of this document for non-commercial educational purposes, as long as you give details of the source and date of publication and do not alter the information in any way. To receive regular email alerts about new publications, including survey reports and school inspection reports, please visit our website and go to ‘Subscribe’.

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You can also use Parent View to find out what other parents and carers think about schools in England. You can visit www.parentview.ofsted.gov.uk, or look for the link on the main Ofsted website: www.ofsted.gov.uk

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Introduction

This inspection was carried out with two days' notice. The inspectors looked at 17 lessons and parts of lessons taught by nine teachers as well as observing assemblies and the school’s before- and after-school club. They held meetings with members of the governing body, staff, pupils, and parents and carers, as well as listening to two groups of pupils read. Inspectors took account of the responses to the on-line Parent View survey in planning the inspection, observed the school’s work, and looked at the governing body minutes, school assessment data, lesson planning and school policies. They also considered the results of the 65 questionnaire responses received from parents and carers, and those received from members of staff.

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Information about the school

This is an average-sized school which serves a diverse community in an area of Surrey that borders south London. It takes the vast majority of its intake in Year 3 from the infant school with which it shares a site. Approximately 90% of pupils at the school are from minority ethnic backgrounds, a figure which is well above the national average. The main groups represented at the school are of Black Caribbean and Black African heritage. Approximately a third of the school’s pupils speak English as an additional language, which is about double the national average, though with a relatively small number who are at the early stages of English fluency. The proportion of disabled pupils and those who have special educational needs supported at school action plus, or with a statement of special educational needs, is well above the national average. The main types of special educational need found in the school are related to specific learning difficulties and behavioural, emotional and

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Information about the school

social difficulties. The proportion of pupils known to be eligible for free school meals is slightly above average. The school meets the government’s current floor standards, which set the minimum expectations for pupils’ attainment and progress.

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Information about the school

Since the last inspection, the school has become part of an academy trust of three schools and at the time of the inspection was subject to a major building refurbishment, which meant that a number of temporary arrangements had been made to provide accommodation for pupils and staff. Inspection grades: 1 is outstanding, 2 is good, 3 is satisfactory, and 4 is inadequate Please turn to the glossary for a description of the grades and inspection terms

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Key findings

 This is a good school. It is not yet outstanding as there remains some variation in the quality of teaching, which means that not all pupils are making rapid and sustained progress. The management team has acted swiftly to address the decline in standards noted in the previous year and has ambitious plans to develop the school further.

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Key findings

 Achievement is good. By the end of Year 6, pupils’ attainment is above average in both mathematics and English. Teachers make good use of assessment data to gauge the pitch of work so that disabled pupils and those who have special educational needs progress at the same rate as other pupils.

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Key findings

 Teaching is good, with some emerging outstanding practice. Teachers have worked hard to increase their confidence and skills to ensure pupils make good progress. In a minority of lessons, teachers do not always encourage pupils to take enough responsibility for their own learning, especially the most able.

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Key findings

 Pupils behave very well and show extremely positive attitudes towards the school, their peers and the staff working with them. They are polite, courteous and proud of all their school. They feel safe and are confident that should any inappropriate behaviour occur it would be dealt with swiftly and fairly. Pupils enjoy coming to school and their attendance is high.

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Key findings

 Senior leaders and the governing body have provided a very clear vision for future development which is shared by all the school’s staff. The leadership of teaching has enabled teachers new to the school to make rapid progress in their development, and staff performance is well managed. The school’s good curriculum enables pupils to achieve well in a planned programme of rich and exciting experiences.

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

Inspection grades: 1 is outstanding, 2 is good, 3 is satisfactory, and 4 is inadequate Please turn to the glossary for a description of the grades and inspection terms

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

 Improve consistency in the quality of teaching so that all is at least good by ensuring that pupils, particularly the most able, are encouraged to take greater responsibility for their own learning.

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Achievement of pupils

The vast majority of parents and carers are justly very pleased with the progress their children make at the school. From starting points which are broadly average, all pupils make good progress in their learning so that by the time they leave the school at the end of Year 6, attainment is above the national average. The school has acted swiftly to address an uncharacteristic dip in attainment in 2011; pupils in the current Year 6 are working at above average levels and this represents a significant improvement on the previous year’s results. All groups of pupils, including disabled pupils and those who have special educational needs, make good progress.

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Achievement of pupils

Pupils develop their reading, writing and communication skills well. Attainment in reading is above average by the end of Year 6; pupils read with fluency and good understanding of the text. In Year 3, pupils have a sound grasp of blending and segmenting letter sounds, although not all are equally confident. In order to address this, the school has rightly placed a focus on the whole-school practice of daily reading workshops that frequently involve the use of a large number of adults to support the development of pupils’ reading skills. By the time the pupils are in Year 5, they are becoming more confident writers and enjoy exploring vocabulary more widely. This includes disabled pupils and those who have special educational needs, whose writing skills have improved so that they are writing with much greater accuracy and making more interesting vocabulary choices.

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Achievement of pupils

Pupils are very enthusiastic and keen to learn new ideas and concepts. For example, in a Year 6 class, the pupils were interviewing an adult acting out the role of Queen Cleopatra; they were fully engaged in the learning task by asking the time-travelling ancient Egyptian visitor a host of very pertinent and often humorous questions while avidly noting down her comments. Work gleaned from this and similar experiences is very well recorded in folders and home-made books and pamphlets which place a high priority on presentation so that pupils can be justly proud of their achievements. Pupils of all backgrounds achieve well because the work is usually very well matched to their individual needs and the teachers are skilled in classroom management techniques that enable all pupils to contribute to the lessons. There are, however, some occasions when opportunities for maximising independent learning are missed.

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Quality of teaching

Parents and carers are overwhelmingly confident that the quality of teaching is good, and inspection findings endorse this view. Teaching is nearly always good and some Inspection grades: 1 is outstanding, 2 is good, 3 is satisfactory, and 4 is inadequate Please turn to the glossary for a description of the grades and inspection terms

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Quality of teaching

is outstanding. Typically, most teachers are very confident in their review of previous learning at the start of lessons. For example, in a Year 6 mathematics lesson, the mental arithmetic starter activity reminded pupils of the purpose of brackets in problems before they went on to use them to solve equations and algebraic problems in the main body of the lesson. This was helpful in enabling pupils’ skills to be transferred into other areas of their work. In some very good lessons, teachers were skilled in scaffolding the steps pupils would need to take in order to succeed in a given task. For instance, in a very lively Year 5 English lesson, pupils had a clear understanding of exactly what they needed to do to succeed and, as a result, worked very effectively in small groups to plan out their written response to a selection of artefacts given to them, while acting as characters from history.

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Quality of teaching

Pupils, especially those in upper Key Stage 2, have a good understanding of the National Curriculum level at which they are working. They are clear about how the feedback they receive from teachers relates to the individual progress targets set for them. Teachers mark books well, although pupils are not always given opportunities to reflect on the feedback they receive and engage in a dialogue with the teacher. Teachers generally use questioning well to draw pupils into the learning and, in the best lessons, they keep up the pace and alertness of pupils through not simply picking answers from volunteers, but engaging with all the pupils.

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Quality of teaching

Occasionally, teachers’ introductions can be rather too long, resulting in the pupils having too little time to get actively involved in their own work. This is particularly true of the most-able pupils who are not always given enough opportunities to take responsibility for their own learning.

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Quality of teaching

Disabled pupils and those who have special educational needs make good progress, largely as a result of the effective work of the school’s inclusion manager, who understands the pupils’ needs very clearly.

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Behaviour and safety of pupils

Pupils have outstanding attitudes to learning. Disruption to learning due to poor behaviour is extremely rare and pupils are able to make good progress in a highly positive learning environment. The excellent behaviour observed during the inspection is typical, and pupils, parents and carers agree that this is the case. They also agree that their children are kept safe at school. Pupils have a very good understanding of what constitutes unsafe situations and how to keep safe, and are particularly appreciative of the effort that school leaders have gone to to keep them safe during the major building programme affecting the school.

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Behaviour and safety of pupils

The school’s behaviour policy is particularly useful in creating an imbued sense of collective responsibility across the school, which results in excellent behaviour in lessons, in assemblies and at times when pupils are playing on the playground or eating lunch. Pupils understand that different types of bullying, such as cyber- bullying, do exist in the wider community and they have an excellent awareness of such issues. They are confident that on the rare occasions that bullying takes place it Inspection grades: 1 is outstanding, 2 is good, 3 is satisfactory, and 4 is inadequate Please turn to the glossary for a description of the grades and inspection terms

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Behaviour and safety of pupils

is dealt with effectively by the staff. The school takes frequent opportunity to introduce aspects of safeguarding into the curriculum as well as through assembly themes. The sterling work of the school’s two learning mentors has contributed greatly to effective partnership practice between parents and the school, as well as working with individuals and groups of children on developing social skills that prepare them well for the next phase in their education.

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Leadership and management

The impact of the leadership is clearly visible in the way senior leaders have robustly addressed the previous dip in attainment and are now successfully embedding ambition for the future direction of the school. They have been highly supportive of teachers and have sustained improvements to the quality of teaching through providing opportunities for professional development that work alongside rigorous performance management processes. This is having a direct impact on the quality of teaching and on pupils’ progress. The expertise of the newly configured management team is exceptional and they have been highly successful in galvanising a vision of excellence that grows from within this school. This is clearly embodied in the school song, ‘Pegasus People’, which celebrates the ethos that endeavours to create a rich and rewarding school environment with high achievement at its core. The governing body is similarly committed and ensures that safeguarding procedures are of good

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Leadership and management

quality and that all statutory requirements are met, including those for child protection. Having now been reconstituted, it is in a good position to continue to develop and hold the school to account for its performance, particularly with regards to collaborating reported achievements with first-hand evidence. As a result of the many positive features within its leadership structure, the school has strong capacity to continue to improve. All leaders have a good understanding of the school and the community which it serves. Staff are effective in tackling discrimination and promoting equality of opportunity.

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Leadership and management

The school’s curriculum is broad and balanced, and meets pupils’ needs well. It provides some very good opportunities for creative work, such as that of Year 4 pupils who wrote some impressive sales pamphlets enticing the reader to purchase one of London’s bridges! Work is often celebrated through very colourful and attractive displays which celebrate the pupils’ achievements and help to create an extremely positive learning environment in the classes and public shared spaces. Provision for pupils’ spiritual, social, moral and cultural development is good. There is an extensive range of clubs and activities, such as the much–celebrated chamber choir, as well as the provision of a number of other sporting, academic and cultural opportunities which add much to pupils’ enjoyment of school.

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Grade Judgement Description

Grade 1 Outstanding These features are highly effective. An outstanding school provides exceptionally well for all its pupils’ needs. Grade 2 Good These are very positive features of a school. A school that is good is serving its pupils well. Grade 3 Satisfactory These features are of reasonable quality. A satisfactory school is providing adequately for its pupils. Grade 4 Inadequate These features are not of an acceptable standard. An inadequate school needs to make significant improvement in order to meet the needs of its pupils. Ofsted inspectors will make further visits until it improves.

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Type of school Outstanding Good Satisfactory Inadequate

Nursery schools 54 42 2 2 Primary schools 14 49 32 6 Secondary schools 20 39 34 7 Special schools 33 45 20 3 Pupil referral units 9 55 28 8 All schools 16 47 31 6

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Type of school Outstanding Good Satisfactory Inadequate

New school inspection arrangements have been introduced from 1 January 2012. This means that inspectors make judgements that were not made previously. The data in the table above are for the period 1 September to 31 December 2011 and represent judgements that were made under the school inspection arrangements that were introduced on 1 September 2009. These data are consistent with the latest published official statistics about maintained school inspection outcomes (see www.ofsted.gov.uk). The sample of schools inspected during 2010/11 was not representative of all schools nationally, as weaker schools are inspected more frequently than good or outstanding schools. Primary schools include primary academy converters. Secondary schools include secondary academy converters, sponsor-led academies and city technology colleges. Special schools include special academy converters and non-maintained special schools.

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Type of school Outstanding Good Satisfactory Inadequate

Percentages are rounded and do not always add exactly to 100.

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Common terminology used by inspectors

Achievement: the progress and success of a pupil in their learning and development taking account of their attainment.

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Common terminology used by inspectors

Attainment: the standard of the pupils’ work shown by test and examination results and in lessons.

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Common terminology used by inspectors

Attendance the regular attendance of pupils at school and in lessons, taking into account the school’s efforts to encourage good attendance.

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Common terminology used by inspectors

Behaviour how well pupils behave in lessons, with emphasis on their attitude to learning. Pupils’ punctuality to lessons and their conduct around the school.

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Common terminology used by inspectors

Capacity to improve: the proven ability of the school to continue improving based on its self-evaluation and what the school has accomplished so far and on the quality of its systems to maintain improvement.

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Common terminology used by inspectors

Floor standards the national minimum expectation of attainment and progression measures.

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Common terminology used by inspectors

Leadership and management: the contribution of all the staff with responsibilities, not just the governors and headteacher, to identifying priorities, directing and motivating staff and running the school.

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Common terminology used by inspectors

Learning: how well pupils acquire knowledge, develop their understanding, learn and practise skills and are developing their competence as learners.

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Common terminology used by inspectors

Overall effectiveness: inspectors form a judgement on a school’s overall effectiveness based on the findings from their inspection of the school.

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Common terminology used by inspectors

Progress: the rate at which pupils are learning in lessons and over longer periods of time. It is often measured by comparing the pupils’ attainment at the end of a key stage with their attainment when they started.

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Common terminology used by inspectors

Safety how safe pupils are in school, including in lessons; and their understanding of risks. Pupils’ freedom from bullying and harassment. How well the school promotes safety, for example e-learning.

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carers to share with their children. It describes Ofsted’s

main findings from the inspection of their school.

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Inspection of Whitehorse Manor Junior School, Thornton Heath CR7 8SB

Thank you for being so very welcoming when we inspected your school recently. We enjoyed looking at your work, seeing you in lessons and listening to what you had to say about your school. You attend a good school. We were pleased to hear that you like your school very much and that you are particularly looking forward to seeing the building work completed! You behave excellently, especially as many of you have had to move into temporary classrooms and the playground is much smaller; you are a real credit to the school. As a result of your great enthusiasm and the good relationships you have with your teachers, you are all making good progress in your learning. The teaching in your school is good, and sometimes even better, and is helped by your positive attitudes.

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Inspection of Whitehorse Manor Junior School, Thornton Heath CR7 8SB

You told us you find your lessons interesting and think your teachers and senior staff do a good job. To make your lessons even better, we have asked your teachers to give you even more opportunities to use your own initiative during lessons and to work independently so you can make even faster progress, particularly if you find the work easy.

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Inspection of Whitehorse Manor Junior School, Thornton Heath CR7 8SB

Each of you can continue to play your part as ‘Pegasus People’ by maintaining your great love of learning and coming to school every day with an intention to continue to do your very best.

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Inspection of Whitehorse Manor Junior School, Thornton Heath CR7 8SB

Tim McLoughlin Lead inspector procedures set out in the guidance 'Complaining about inspections', which is available from Ofsted’s website: www.ofsted.gov.uk . If you would like Ofsted to send you a copy of the guidance, please telephone 0300 123 4234 , or email enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk .

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